Customer Reviews

Smallville: Hauntings (Smallville (Warner))

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After reading the other books in the Smallville series, I was not pleased. They are nothing like the show. But even though thats true, I decided to give Hauntings a chance, and I'm glad I did. This is the best book in the Smallville series by far, it is about a haunted farmhouse, and a Mayor's past. A good book, if anyone else has read the Smallville books and has been disappointed, hopefully you will enjoy this one.

The town of Smallville has become a character in the TV series of the same name, with a history of strangeness that extends back a long time before the meteor shower that brought Clark Kent to earth. This book explores some of that strangeness in a ghost story where unavenged wrongs keep the souls of victims active in the world.

All the characters get their share of the action, both the cast familiar to us from the TV show, and a few new ones. The Brucker's come to Smallville with their own ghost still a very unsettled part of their lives. By the end of the book they are not only at peace with themselves, but they manage to escape Smallville alive. No small feat for secondary characters in this series.

Nancy Holder has some fun with a range of details while telling her story, from small town life to cutting edge science to the toys and phone etiquette of the super rich. Her characterizations of the characters were very good. I especially liked Chloe's annoyance at Clark's attempts to save her life while she was preoccupied with camera angles. Who cares about supernatural attacks when the story is all around you, after all?

The ability of the Luthor family to hide anything allowed Nancy to write a much more important story than you usually see in series books. If I have any gripe at all, it's that Clark has so little understanding of Lex's need to sweep everything under the rug.

It's not like he has his own spaceship in the storm cellar or anything.

Nancy Holder has a real problem with "gray" characters. She didn't get Spike in her Btvs novels, and she doesn't get Lex in Smallville. I really think she would be better served sticking with series where all the characters are clearly labeled "good" or "evil". If you like Lex, you won't like this novel. In fact, if you like the "gray" morally ambiguous characters in any series, you should probably avoid any tie-in novels by Nancy Holder.

Ghosts are real. In Smallville, there is strange energy generated by green glowing meteorites. Enter high-energy physics and you are just asking for trouble.

Nancy Holder tells a tale of a scientist renting a haunted house. Unfortunately the ghosts have gained extra strength from the presence of the Smallville meteorites.

Clark Kent and friends get involved with the scientist daughter and try to solve the ghostly mystery. Along the way there are disappearances, seances, cover-ups and Clark begins to lose his powers.

The ghosts and their haunting would be at home in any conventional horror tale. Good spooks and some clever plot twists make it quite good. The book's weakness is involved in adapting the ghost story to Smallville.

Ms. Holder has a strange idea about man-made elements and I couldn't help thinking that the imagery was taken from the movie Madame Curie. Also, there is no real explanation as to why Clark is losing his powers or how he gets them back again. Now, in the Superman mythos, Superman is vulnerable to magic, but that was not the case here. Instead, it was just an unexplained plot device.

A good ghost story (I really enjoyed the twists), but the Smallville framing just didn't work.

adise from the first smallville book that was based on the first
episode, this book comes in a close second as a well written book. when a famous scientist is killed in an accident, his widow and daughter decide to move to smallville to start over. they rent a farmhouse but soon discover that the house is haunted. the daughter ginger enlists the help of clark, chloe,
pete, and lana to discover what is causing the unrest in the house. the story is suspenseful and has a very good ending. of course, nancy holder wrote this book. she has written several buffy the vampire slayer books and i have always admired her work. for any true smallville fan this book is a must.

Hauntings was a good addition to the series and one well worth reading. The only reason I did not rate it a four is because the book was slow at points and unlike the first two books in the series I felt the Lex Luthor character was not as strong in dialogue. If you've read my reviews on the first 2 books then you will realize I hammered the Clark character. The author did a much better job with Clark in this book and it was very true to the story and characters. Definitely worth reading and I would say is one step behind Dragon but better than Strange Visitors.

Okay, this book gave me goosebumps even in the day time. Very good suspense and thrill writing! Think you'll like it too. Don't expect the same as in the TV series. That's what makes it worth reading, a different perspective by a talented author.

The Smallville companion novels are quite good. They maintain the characters and there interrelationships faithfully. It was good fun to read. I highly recommend all the books in this series.

I don't think this author knows anything about the characters. This book was like reading a screenplay to a corny old horror movie with the names of the Smallville characters added as an afterthought. I didn't like this book at all.

This is an amazing Smallville book. I truly enjoyed every last single page of the book. Basically, it is about a haunted house being occupied by a young girl and her mother (a scientist working for Lex Luther). The young girl Ginger, is totally spooked about living in the house and make her feelings known to Clark, Lana, Chloe, and Pete. They all hold a seance to draw out the ghost. Honestly speaking, I was spooked out of my mind after reading this book. I must admit that I had a nightmare. Overall, the characters in the books are very believable and this book will make a great Smallville episode. This book also explores the relationship Clark has with his parents which is great because it isn't explored much on the TV show. This book has earned five stars.